E3 2015: EA Press Conference Impressions

Aside from recent releases like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Battlefield: Hardline, EA hasn't had the best few years.  Buggy launches, poor customer support and selling certain titles without being feature complete are a few examples of EA's sins over the past few years.  Last year's EA press conference didn't make things any better as they put on possibly the worst press conference I ever had the dishonour of watching.  There is no way that EA could put on two bad performances in a row, right?

Let us start with the good news, EA's press conference was better than last year's showing.  The bad news is that isn't saying much.  In all honesty, EA has a great lineup of games under their umbrella; they just can't seem to translate that quality to the stage.  When a conference with Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge and Star Wars almost puts you to sleep, there is something wrong.

The reason that EA had problems in translating quality to their stage performance was that they spent too much time telling instead of showing.  The actual game demos showed at the conference combined for a run time of maybe 20 minutes.  For a 90 minute press conference, that's unacceptable.  Also whoever thought splitting EA Sports into four excruciatingly boring and unnecessarily long segments to fill time should be fired along with the person who thought having an interview with soccer legend Pele was a good use of time.

Out of all the bad, there were a couple of diamonds in the rough.  Star Wars Battlefront had a phenomenal demo that expertly replicated the scale and grandeur of the Battle for Hoth from Empire Strikes Back.  In five minutes, DICE showed first and third-person perspectives, vehicle combat (which includes controlling AT-ATs) and playable hero characters all to a great amount of fanfare.  Other than Battlefront, the only other game to truly impress was Unravel, a puzzle platformer with unique mechanics revolving around yarn.  While I have a feeling Unravel will be a smaller title in EA's lineup, it has the potential of stacking up their with other great mascot platformers like LittleBigPlanet and Mario.

If it wasn't for Star Wars Battlefront and Unravel, EA's 2015 press conference would have served as a good time for a nap or a bathroom break.  EA seems to bark to the heavens that they understand their fans, but they are so out of touch that it's hilarious.  Gamers don't watch your E3 press conference to hear about your onslaught of yearly sports games, we want the Battlefronts, Mass Effects, Mirror's Edges and Unravels to be the focus of your show.  Until EA understands that fact, they will suffer the same negative reaction year-in and year-out.

Grade:  D+

E3 2014: EA Press Conference Impressions

2013 was not a year Electronic Arts wants to remember.  Everything under the sun seemed to go wrong for the gaming giant in 2013 starting with the mess that was SimCity and concluding with the severe online problems of Battlefield 4.  Hoping to turn their fortunes around, EA should bring out all the stops with their conference this year.  In a few short moments, you will hear if EA can turn around their fortunes from their unlucky 2013 or continue their downward spiral.

Well EA's misfortunes continue with easily their worst performance at E3 to date.  Words cannot describe how mindbogglingly bad EA's conference was.  Things seemed to be going in the right direction with Andrew Wilson's description of the structure for the conference which would see first looks at projects early in development along with demos for soon to be released games.  Sadly, none of the initial promise led to anything worthwhile.  EA showed footage and images so far in advance for games such as the next Mass Effect, BioWare's new IP, Star Wars Battlefront and Criterion's extreme racing game that it did nothing to build hype or excitement.  Everything just fell flat and EA could never build any sort of excitement or momentum.  The most boring moments of EA's conference came from the onslaught of EA Sports titles.  It may be nice for some to see hyper realistic graphics that they will never see in the actual game but that is misleading advertising not quality marketing.  EA use to be able to move through the sports presentation at a smooth clip, but it just went on forever this year.  The only sports game that appeared to be remotely fun was the new EA Sports PGA Tour that looks to mix traditional golf courses with crazy fantasy courses however that one trailer could do nothing to save this show.  If the monotonous sports game presentation was not enough, the Battlefield Hardline main event just emphasized how mind numbing this press conference was.  Nothing in the full multiplayer reveal of Hardline stood out.  It was exactly the same as every other Battlefield multiplayer demo EA has done at previous E3s just with instant grappling hooks and zip lines.  Nevertheless like everything else on this show, Battlefield Hardline was nothing impressive as it felt very derivative in its design and execution.

E3 has seen no shortage of bad press conferences.  EA's offerings this year rank among the worst to ever grace this stage.  Bringing the audience into the developer's studios and seeing upcoming projects in progress was a neat idea, but the execution did nothing to elicit any sense of joy or excitement.  Barely anytime was spent on the games that people wanted to see like Star Wars Battlefront, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mirror's Edge.  All-in-all, EA's E3 2014 Press Conference was a complete waste of sixty minutes and never worth revisiting again.

Grade:  F

E3 2013: EA Press Conference Impressions

One of the few constants at E3 has been Electronic Arts.  There conferences have been consistently watchable as they have provided a lot of good information on the great amounts of projects they publish.  As we head face first into the next generation of consoles, will EA soar to brand new heights or continue to falter?

To answer that question right off the bat, EA will continue their abysmal year after such a weak conference.  There was a good number of quality games on display just EA only spent fifteen to twenty minutes of their conference covering them.  Right at the beginning, EA blew off the door with an incredible trailer for Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare that parodied EA's own Battlefield trailers.  Following the trailer, EA gave us an incredible demo for Garden Warfare that easily convinced me of PopCap's newest venture with the Plants vs. Zombies series.  There was the announcement of Peggle 2, but nobody seemed to care because what follow was easily the surprise of EA's conference.  That surprise was... wait for it... Star Wars Battlefront!  Eight years following the release of Battlefront 2, we are finally getting a sequel to one of the best Star Wars games out there.  Also the multiplayer shooter specialists at DICE are handling the next Battlefront so it should be good.  Disappointing enough after the Battlefront reveal, EA's conference took a turn for the worse.  There were still some good stuff in this conference such as Dragon Age Inquisition, Battlefield 4 multiplayer and another reveal that we will get to in a bit, but not enough to keep the absolutely horrible from sucking the life from this conference.  The horrible started when EA moved onto Need For Speed.  The new Need For Speed Rivals looked interesting, but felt too derivative of the past Criterion Need For Speed games.  Then EA decided to make a venture into the realm of movies by showing us a trailer for the Need For Speed movie (we all know how this movie will turn out).  EA's time in Hollywood was not the lowest point of the conference that honour goes to EA Sports, which drove this conference straight into the ground and kept on digging deeper.  From random rapping to nonsensical celebrity appearances to Dana White repeating the same sentence over and over again, EA made a complete and utter joke of their entire sports division.  None of the gameplay shown for these sports games looked anything close to the target video that EA put on a pedestal at the Xbox One reveal.  Even with all the crap EA put us through, there was a light shining at the end of the dark tunnel.  That light was the long awaited reveal of Mirror's Edge 2.  The short trailer was enough to send gamers home happy.  Just not enough to save a conference that was already six feet under.

EA's press conference started out great, but it was all downhill after the Battlefront reveal.  EA tried to bring the conference back to life multiple times but no avail.  There were a few good moments, nothing that could make me personally recommend watching past the first 15 minutes of the conference.

Grade:  D+